Russians hack Instagram to create new service

Travchuk: “I think Instagram realizes that they are going to benefit from what we are doing, so they are not going to block us.” Source: Shutterstock

The service developed by the hackers, Instapult, would allow the automation of posts to Instagram.

A group of Russian programmers has launched
a new service called Instapult that automates the publication of content on the
popular photo-sharing site Instagram. Instapult allows users to work with
several Instagram accounts at the same time, as well as to prepare posts in
advance and schedule their release.

However, unlike other social networks such
as Facebook, Instagram does not have a public Application Programming Interface
(API), which would allow posts to be made from third-party sources.

In order to create the new service, Dmitry
Trachuk and his co-programmers had to hack Instagram’s software.

“The Instagram public API does not have
message posting functionality,” said Trachuk, explaining how he developed the
software for Instapult. “But there is also a non-public API, which they use for
their own work. We are using the non-public API.”

Instagram could block Travchuk’s access to
the site. The company has said that if an application violates the API terms of
use, the company will first try to cooperate with the developers. But if they
fail to reach an agreement, the developers will be denied access.

Travchuk is sure that his application will
not be blocked.

“I think Instagram realizes that they are
going to benefit from what we are doing, so they are not going to block us,”
Travchuk said.

Instapult can be useful to Social Media Marketing
(SMM) specialists, who have to maintain several accounts at the same time.

Anton Korobkov-Zemlyanskiy, head of the
media agency Legend, said there is obvious demand for an Instagram automation
service – especially among SMM agencies that manage social media accounts on
the service for large companies. At the moment, Russia now has 10-15 large SMM
agencies, and 50-70 smaller ones.

Additionally, it is not unheard of
for large Internet companies actually to encourage talented hackers and even to
offer them jobs. There is the possibility that Instagram’s parent company,
Facebook, could make the developers an offer for the new service.

But Korobkov-Zemlyansky is not optimistic
about the changes of this scenario.

“Instagram is not always user-friendly, and there is a certain
need for automation software. But I don’t think they will be able to reach an
agreement with Instagram. There have already been several precedents of
Instagram blocking such solutions.”

Denis Terikhov, managing partner at the
Social Networks agency says he is not aware of any Instagram automation
services – but that his company has managed to get Instagram's consent for the
development of such a service.